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Sunday, January 16, 2011

24 Dec 2010 - Christmas Eve at Semporna

I'm the last to arrived at the airport for our connecting AirAsia flight to Tawau via KL. Given that its Christmas eve, the checkin counter was fully packed. Fortunately we're doing a group checkin as my luggage was over weighted at about 22kg. It will surely be worse coming back.

It was my first time on an AirAsia flight and my first flying in to KL. Didn't quite expected the long walk outside in the heat before getting from the aircraft into the terminal. We took a while to get through the custom which leaves us little time for any meal after going through the checkin for the onward flight to Tawau. I had a near miss with overweight cabin luggage when the person ahead in line was stopped to have his cabin bag weighted. Excluding the camera bag, mine was well over 10kg. Trying my best to stand as straight and making the backpack look as small as possible, I quickly walked through the gate. Phew.

Without any further incident, we arrived at Tawau and got through the custom in a jiffy. A van picked us up and we have about an hour drive up to Semporna, which is the gateway to Sipadan, Kapalai and Mabul island. We proceed for a simple dinner at one of the local coffeeshop after checking into Seafest Hotel. Semporna is a small and quiet fishing village and there is hardly a tinge of Christmas in the air. Dinner was thus a quick and quiet affair.

Most of the folks turn in for the night after dinner and some of us made use of the free Wifi in the hotel lounge area. Getting fed by countless waves of mozzies in the sleepy hotel certainly isn't the greatest way to spend the eve. While we're getting fed by the mozzies, the sky opened up and started raining cats and dogs. I did a quick check on the weather forecast by the Malaysian met station and saw something I really hate to see. It seems like it's going to rain a whole lot over the next few days over at Sipadan. Phew. Just got to keep my finger crossed that it'll turn out to be fine. Time for bed. I hope I can sleep. :)